New Orleans’ hotel restaurants are having a major moment. From stylish interiors, colorful cocktails, and standout menus by the city’s best chefs, travel and food journalist Katie Lockhart shares five of NOLA’s coolest hotel restaurants.
Past the lobby of the Kimpton Hotel Fontenot is the Peacock Room. Bursting with ornate character, it has whimsical wallpaper, mosaic tile floors and of course, stuffed peacocks. The menu is just as fun, with colorful cocktails and one of the city’s best burgers.
Tucked inside the glamorous new Four Seasons is Miss River. Celebrated local chef Alon Shaya creates New Orleans comfort food spotlighting fresh seafood and killer classic desserts in a posh art-deco style dining room with opulent marble fish scale tiles and mirrored columns.
Located in a renovated 19th-century mansion on St. Charles Ave is one of the city’s most exciting hotels and restaurants. With multiple dining areas inside and out, each is more eclectic than the last. This seasonal Creole menu has innovative takes on regional classics include the smoked pork belly in lettuce cups, shrimp etouffee dumplings and brown butter apple tartlet.
(📷: Paul Costello)
Inside the new Hotel Saint Vincent is San Lorenzo, named after the patron saint of cooks. Book a white-linen table here, and you’ll see why. Large format checkerboard floors between white columns and green velvet booths offer an elegant design matching the coastal Italian menu.
Various dining areas make up the new Common’s Club inside the Virgin Hotel. From its cozy lounge with horse-pattern wallpaper to its New Orleans-inspired galley with all-white walls, upturned basket lampshades and hanging ferns, it’s a design lover’s dream. The changing menu includes American classics with a superbly Southern twist.
